A Glamping we will go...

A few weeks ago my husband got Covid (only mild fortunately) so we spent some time in quarantine. I had even more time on my hands than usual. Sigh! What are you going to do with idle hands - make something fun of course!

Who wouldn’t want to go Glamping with these girls!

In my story my heroine Nieva gets to recuperate from an accident by staying in Zahrah’s cabin. Meanwhile, Zahrah, Affie, and the warrior girls are “camping” outside. I wanted a couple of photos inside the “tent” so I wanted to make something quick and easy. My first thoughts were to build teepees for them. I watched videos on how to put up teepees, and how to knot the three main poles together. I tried it and it was not easy, or successful. I struggled for hours to tie three sticks together and get them to stand up. It turns out I am terrible at teepees! Suitably disappointed, I turned my thoughts to either an arabian style tent, or a yurt.

I had a bunch of dowels I bought to make the teepees with and decided I would use those to make the frame for a yurt. I drew a semicircle on a board and hot glued the dowels to it.

I used some string to “tie” the posts together. I put some nice paper on the floor, to cover the surface of the board. I draped some fleece fabric around the sides and finally suspended another piece of fabric for the roof. It was all very cosy, so now to decorate….

I created some overstuffed beds with filling and fabric, then hand stitched some little cushions from my fabric “cabbage” to add to the comfort. Years ago I had flirted with crochet and created some little sampler squares to try out stitches. Never throw anything away, because guess what - these made perfect cute little rugs for the floor. Lol! 

I hung up some of the lucidite lights I made for the mermaid cavern, added some metal hooks for storing up the girls hunting equipment and lo and behold - we have a wonderful “Glamping” experience.

So folks, if you can’t afford the five star Vrbo experience of Zahrah’s cabin, then glamping in the yurt might be for you! Apply now ;)

Another year - more tiny stuff!

Here we are in a brand new year - and still hoping the world will get to a better place soon. I was away for Christmas and New Year so it’s only now that I am back working on setting up little scenes to illustrate my story. Prior to Christmas I set up Zahrah’s cabin, but when I looked at it again it looked very bare so I’ve spent some time decorating and making more stuff to go in the space and make it look lived in. Here are the before and after pics.

Not bad - but a bit bare

Ah - now that’s more like it!

I made some framed pictures of my paintings to go on the walls. The two landscapes are 4 x 6 photos of my work, but the floral painting is an actual watercolor which I trimmed to size and mounted on a board. I was thrilled with the way the watercolor looked - if only I could do that on a huge scale in real life.

Below is a closeup of the bookcase cupboard I made out of mat board. I covered it in paper and then painted it, and filled it with interesting items and tiny books.

A bookcase full of fun stuff.

Vase made of beads and a button base. Teapot made from glass bead and metal jewelry decor.

My daughter in law got me some wooden buttons for Christmas (she knows me so well!) and yes I have had lots of fun finding things to make with them! I have combined them with beads - as in these vases which have buttons as bases.

Another bead “vase” with a button base. I finally found a use for some of the feathers in my collection!

Here’s a little table made from buttons

These plates are actually buttons too… and more glass bead teapots (I just went crazy making those!)

I’m so pleased with how the cabin looks now and everyone says how they would love to stay in it - maybe I should put it on Vrbo! ;)

Zahrah reading at her desk.

Time for Snow and Snowmen

Seasons Greetings to you all.

We haven’t even had a frost here yet, but I’m hoping for a little seasonal snow at some point - or a some more rain at the very least. To get into the Christmas mood here is a snowman I needle felted. He is one of two I created to give to very dear friends. I photographed him down by the lake, along with Serac, my reindeer. Snowmen are fun to make. They do not require an armature so they’re relatively quick to make. I still have tons of long pine needles to use up so a few went to make little snowmen brooms. My husband found me knitting the other day and asked what I was making. “Scarves for snowmen” was my answer, to which he rolled his eyeballs as usual and replied “Of course you are. I don’t know why I asked!”

Nieva and Quest admire a dawn sky

I always like to make my own Christmas cards, and some gifts, so that makes this time of year my busiest. I should start making in June really, but hey who is that organized? Certainly not me! I did get my cards made by Thanksgiving this year, and mailed them all before the end of November - that was a first! All this work of course means that my story has been on temporary hiatus. Prior to Thanksgiving I did create a big watercolor painting of a dawn sky for one of the story scenes, and the photo above is what I used it for. 

There will be more to follow as time allows. Watch this space!

In praise of brave, resilient women everywhere...

I grew up in an era where women in stories and movies (if there were any) inevitably screamed, fainted, or mysteriously “lost” their clothes under stress! Women were expected to look to men for help and protection, and the vast majority of the exciting and adventurous stories I was exposed to were purely from the male point of view. I enjoyed them nonetheless, but I longed for a female voice in my head. In truth of course women have always been resilient, capable, and intelligent and now I am loving that there are myriads of strong women characters to be seen in books, movies and TV programs reflecting that. 

With all that in mind I created two warrior women characters for my story, to be hunters and protectors for their community. 

Rowan and Amber are close friends and skilled archers. You might notice Rowan is a lefty! Amber is tall and serious, she loves weapons of all kinds. All my characters are into archery but Rowan is also a capable medic. Both girls are devoted to Zahrah, my scholar character.

Each of my characters starts out as a vague idea in my head and this is my material starting point - a dull collection of sculpture wire and wool. Once I start making the character the wool takes over and dictates a lot of what happens. Add a lot of imagination… tons of time… a few needle felting and sewing skills of course and ….voila! - a character is born.

Each of my warrior women took about a week to make, but even after I think they are finished I often keep going back and making little adjustments - perhaps more wool on the face, or limbs, more hair, or just a lot more felting. I don’t name them until after they are pretty much complete. At that point I go through a list of possible names and see which one the character wants to have. I wanted my community of warrior women to be inclusive so I relished making a darker skinned girl. She’s made from a luscious brown colored wool called Chestnut. The purple hair was an afterthought - I have so many lovely little bits of colored wool it would be a shame not to use them!

I decided to make Rowan pale and red haired - representing my touch of Irish ancestry.  I had intended for both warrior women to have the same “uniform”, and I half made a dress the sam as Amber’s for Rowan, but she decided on something a little different. I didn’t argue - I am always guided by what my characters really want! ;)

After I had dressed the warrior girls and given them bows and arrows, Amber absolutely had to have a short sword.  Once again I used up some wine bottle foil to create a sword blade, glued it to part of a cocktail stick, which I then decorated with a bead and leather wrap. The faux red leather I bought from JoAnn Fabrics is lovely to work with and very easy to sew. I made a nice little scabbard for Amber’s sword and attached it to a belt. For an idea of scale the sword is 3 inches long. In my story Rowan has to carry medical supplies so I created a backpack for her based on the one I made for Nieva. The back pack contains some medical “instruments” in the form of tiny scalpels etc. and will have medicines and bandages in it eventually.

I haven’t got to photographing the scenes of the story where my warrior women come in, I’m still busy with Nieva and Affie’s adventures. However, here’s a little scene along the journey where Affie learns archery. I wonder if she will get on well with the warrior women?

A comfy bed for an old lady, and miniature goodies everywhere

Towards the end of their journey in my story Nieva and Affie meet my repurposed grannie character, Zahrah. In a previous blog post you saw the desk and chair I made for Zahrah. Now I’m having fun making even more stuff. This time I revamped the fairy bed I made last year (2nd revamping actually, as I had already made it longer when I created Grandmother Zuri). I added some “mosquito netting” above the bed.

I found myself wanting to create a better quilt for Zarah, so here is the finished article. Looks fancy enough for any bed and Zahrah will be very cosy snuggled under that. It’s all sewn by hand - I was too lazy to get the sewing machine out.

Welcome to Zahrah’s Cabin

Zahrah’s home is going to be a fun place to build. I already have the front worked out - I repurposed Nieva’s cabin from the beginning of my story and turned it into the outside entrance to Zahrah’s and added a gate built of twigs.

Zahrah’s Gate. I have a large collection of long pine needles and had intended to learn how to make a basket with them. That has not happened yet, so weaving them into my gate was a good use for some of them. I’ll get to that basket one day….

I just can’t stop making these cool mini things!

Inside Zahrah’s home will be a couple of rooms filled with books, scrolls, and other intriguing stuff for Zahrah the scholar/naturalist/scientist to study with. The book on the lectern is about dragons so Zahrah’s interest in them will come into my story.

More fun stuff for Zahrah to play with - a telescope and magnifier.

Seeds are always a good source of interesting forms and I’m always on the lookout for natural stuff I can add into my scenes. The “handles” on my little cupboard are seeds from a Grevillea shrub in the garden.

I found some tiny decorative telescopes in the jewelry section of Michaels and just had to have them. I used some sculpture wire to make a base and glued some jewelry findings either side of the telescope. I painted the wire bronze.

I also had fun making a teeny magnifier. Also in Michaels I saw some bracelet closures and thought the round part would make a great magnifying glass.  I poured a tiny amount of Gloss acrylic gel into the center and let it dry for a few days. I used freezer paper underneath so that the gel didn’t stick. I was then able to peel it off and attach the “magnifier” to a piece of wire for the base. I added a tiny metal “gear wheel” to the base for Zahrah to place things on when she is looking at them.

When I’m not picking up acorn cups in the park or shopping in Craft stores, I can be found in fabric shops…. I netted these goodies in JoAnn Fabrics with my next project in mind.

A while ago I had a fun trip to Joann Fabrics and bought some exciting stuff for a new project. At the end of my story is a community of warrior women, so I have to felt some warrior girls and then make clothes for them. What will they look like and what sort of clothes should I make…my mind is working overtime! You’ll get to see them in my next post.

"Meadows can occur naturally under favorable conditions..."

All this time Nieva has had her wonderful sleigh to carry all her worldly goods in. But as time passes spring is coming and the snow is melting. She has to abandon the sleigh (I know, I know, how could I do that to her?) 

Instead of the sleigh Nieva decides to build a travois to carry her stuff. She’s a resourceful person as you can tell. :)

Nieva finally gets to meet the dragon - a totally terrifying experience, of course!

Nieva’s campsite.

For these outdoor scenes the challenge was to make a meadow area surrounded by trees.

“Meadows can occur naturally under favorable conditions, but are often maintained by humans…” so says Wikipedia. My meadow is definitely the latter. I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like, but it proved harder to make than I thought. I started by searching out my old watercolors and painting a background of trees. This I attached to the wall along with an old landscape painting which I repurposed with some pastels. Not being entirely satisfied with the look of that, I trimmed some trees in my garden and brought the resulting little branches of greenery into my studio to place in front of the backdrop. It ended up being a fairly effective combination of painted stuff, felt, fabric, and real tree bits. 

This is my studio setup (65 inches long by 33 deep). You can clearly see the painted backdrop and real bits of tree. The hardest part of dealing with this scene was that it was on the floor. There must have been a really good reason for me doing that, but now that my knees and back are complaining it completely escapes me! Never again. For these early shots I kept the white fur fabric as snow. In later images I incorporated large areas of green on the ground for the emerging spring grass.

So the next part of my story involves Nieva meeting the dragon rider, Affie. Will they become friends, or enemies? What adventures will they have? Watch this space….. :)

Working from Home?...

Some people might ask, why make such silly things? Well, life is kinda scary right now, between the smoke, fires, and Covid here in CA, it’s a worrying time. For me, when life gets scary I like to retreat into complete fantasy. When I am absorbed, all my cares and worries fade away. Having a story to illustrate has given me an excuse to make fun, imaginary things.

Nieva’s Grandmother Zuri. The characters I created for my story have a life of their own and I am very fond of them so I decided to repurpose my Grandmother Zuri character so that she can be a new character in my continuing story.

Those of you following this may remember me making Nieva’s grandmother  Zuri months ago. Sadly, in my story, her death is the catalyst for Nieva’s journey. Well, you can’t let a good character go to waste, so here she is repurposed and ready to play a new character in the tale. 

I replaced her grey hair with curly white and added a few more bags and wrinkles in her face. I tried to model her on my grandmother and I think she looks quite adorable. I haven’t named her yet, but Zahrah is my favorite so far. The photo was taken in front of the original “cabin” that I made for Nieva and her Grandmother. I will repurpose that too, and have started making changes by turning what was the inside into the outside.

Zahrah, is a scholar, and will be key in helping Nieva and my dragon rider, Affie, find a place to live. With that in mind I was down a Pinterest rabbit hole and found some wonderful people who make miniature books. Of course every scholar has books…so I had to make some!

I found some great instructions and free printable antique looking book covers and pages on the internet. All you have to do is print, cut, cut, cut, cut some more, then glue, oh and glue some more……and embellish. It’s a fun, fiddly thing to do and used up one or two of my many tiny jewelry findings. 

The parts of a book - the pages are put together in a stack and glued along the spine, then a little bit of cocktail stick is glued to the spine to give a curve to it. The covers are painted with a glaze of acrylic paint and gloss medium before assembly. The end papers are glued to the inside of the cover, then to the first and last pages of the book.

I initially made four books to get the hang of it. The three thinner volumes I embellished with copper foil, leather, and tiny bits of jewelry findings. I colored the edges of the pages with a gel pen to make them look gilded. To try something more advanced I put a leather clasp on the thicker volume. It was difficult to glue the tiny stud that the strap hooks on to and it remains to be seen if it will last long, but it is my favorite book by far. The stud is the end of a head pin. I was thrilled with the way the little books turned out and decided to make some fun ancient scrolls too.

For the scrolls I actually printed some things from my family history. The open scroll is a tiny printout of my Great Grandfather’s apprentice indenture from when he trained to be a papermaker in 1881. Total length unrolled 3”, height 2” at the ends. The larger scroll is a miniature 1824 map of my home town in England. 

I already had a set of “fairy” shelves which I made last year, but I decided to make a desk and chair for Zahrah so that she would have somewhere comfortable to do her studies -hence the Twigge Towne Furnishing Ad above. You will be surprised to know that I am now almost out of twigs in my studio. Lol! - who thought this day would come! 

After the success of the books and scrolls I looked around for other “miniature” things to make and found that I could repurpose my eye drop ampules as tiny little bottles. Then I cut some short bits of glue stick, melted it a little, stuck some jewelry wire in the center of the glue stick and painted the end black - voila a candle! Then I had more fun with beads and jewelry findings in order to make the Lucidite lamps on the little chair. The little inkpot on the desk is a bead, and the tiny quill is a real feather that I found in my garden.

It’s a perfect little world of my own making - I just wish reality was as controllable!

"Her mind had went out for a stroll, and fallen down a rabbit hole..."

At least once a week I turn into Alice in Wonderland and get sucked down the rabbit hole that is Pinterest! What wondrous ideas live down there! Anyway more recently I found some clever people who make miniature food from polymer clay- usually for dolls houses. Of course I had to try…..

I saw instructions on how to make a roast lamb joint, so with Nieva off hunting deer I thought I’d try making a roast haunch of venison. I have to say it came out better than I thought! Using polymer clay is pretty easy - once you’ve watched enough how to videos! I started out making the “bone” which gets baked and cooled, then I built the colored layers of the meat around it. That gets textured and “sliced” and then baked. Once it is cooled you can paint it. The loaves of bread were made the same way - shaped, textured, baked and painted. I use thin acrylics for the painting.

The yummy roast!

I’m still in knife making mode - so I made a carving knife and a bread knife to go with the food. My husband came home while I was baking the clay and saw that I had the oven on. “What are you cooking?” he asked. He was excited when I said Venison and Bread - but was sadly disappointed when he looked in the oven! However, he soon came around once I finished painting the venison and it looked so yummy. He promptly went off to the garage and soldered me a miniature fork!

Lettuce mold

With that success under my belt I then saw some instructions for making lettuce/cabbage. This introduced me to creating polymer clay molds. Using two flat pieces of clay you carve/scratch out two molds (front and back) for the thing you want to create  - in this case a lettuce leaf). The molds get baked. Once they are cool brush them with corn starch so that the polymer clay will not stick to the mold. Then take a small piece of clay, flatten it to roughly the shape you want and press between the two molds. Remove carefully then you can trim and gently shape the leaf to give it curly edges. Make a few, then make a core for your lettuce and attach the leaves. Leave some detached (ready for sandwiches!) Bake, then paint when cooled.

Fruits and veg

I also created a fairly convincing melon. Some apples were made from wooden beads which I painted. Now I have a veritable Thanksgiving feast of goodies!

A Hunting We Will Go...

While pondering how to build the next large scene for my story I thought I’d have some fun making Nieva a change of clothes and some useful hunting equipment. She will shortly be in warmer climes and needs to replenish her food supplies (I think Rime scarfed most of her food!) ;)

In my story Nieva is goes deer hunting. I decided she needed a spear, but after creating it I wondered how feasible it would be to kill deer with a spear so decided to make a bow and arrows too…

Nieva tries the bow

Youtube is a wonderful resource and I found several “how to” videos for making miniature bows. (I am not the only crazy person out there! Lol!)  In the end I made up my own bow, loosely based on what I’d seen. I used three pieces of floral wire twisted together then bent at each end. I covered the bow in floral tape which was ok, but didn’t quite disguise the “nobbly” nature of the twisted wire. I was able to string floss between the ends and there is enough spring in the floral wire to make the bow work.  I cut down wooden kebab skewers for the arrows, and I repurposed a bit more of the old golf glove as a quiver. The bow is capable of firing the arrows 3 - 4 feet - although not with any degree of accuracy! I think Nieva looks like she could be in the Olympics though!

Ultimately a quick internet search came up with the spear being easier to use and become proficient at, plus easier to make and maintain. Anyway, Nieva can take her choice…. And for anyone opposed to killing animals I will just say that Nieva is hunting only to eat!

Equipped for any eventuality!

When making the spear I used a bit of thick foil for the spear head and this looked quite effective so I got carried away and decided to make another knife for Nieva. This time she got a machete - which will be very useful in the wooded areas she is going to be traveling through. The machete blade is made from a piece of foil taken from the top of a wine bottle. This sort of foil is easy to glue and cut and has enough body and sheen to look convincingly metal-like….also using it is a great excuse for drinking more wine! Did you know - the foil on top of a wine bottle was originally put there to keep vermin from getting at the corks and wine. These days it’s purely aesthetic. As it costs money and resources but ends up in the landfill there is a trend to get rid of it. At least I’m doing my bit by recycling some…better get drinking while it’s still around!

Finally - a Mermaid Cavern!

Well life has been getting in the way of art so it’s taken a while to get here, but finally the mermaid cavern is finished and I have been busy photographing scenes for my story. The one above is my Mermaid Sealia calling Nieva into the magical cavern.

I have ended up with about 28 images telling this part of my story. That’s probably sounds a little excessive, but quite a lot happens in the cavern and I was having so much fun posing my characters I couldn’t stop. Of course for every image I kept I had taken several wrongly focussed or badly lit ones! I keep telling myself its a learning experience - go with the flow! My daughter and son-in-law got me some cool lenses for my phone camera and I had some fun using those for special effects.

This little guy “speaks” to Nieva warning her to beware of the Merfolk. I took the photo with a fisheye lens, then did a bit more to it in Photoshop. This weirdo character is a tiny piece of driftwood I found on the beach. It spoke to me too, as I passed it by, so I had to bring it home and put it in my story. ;)

The cavern setup in my studio

Here you can see the scale of the mermaid cavern ( 44 inches wide and 48 inches long) and also what a mess the rest of my studio is! I’m still using my ancient old Imac for image modification but that had to go on the floor as all my table space was used up. It’s not easy at my age to grovel on the carpet to play with Photoshop - good job I’m still fairly flexible, although the knees did protest quite a bit.

I made about 11 feet of rock backdrop, which I painted on paper with oil pastels. It was not easy figuring out how to prop this up and had to resort to using various clips and tape, canvases and cardboard clamped to the table.

Creating the ocean was a fun project. I used scraps of material, lace, tulle, buttons, shells, two pieces of wet felting (a trial run for dragon wings), and covered it all with some shiny blue nylon from an Amazon gift bag - never throw anything away… ;)  

Nieva gets to know the Merfolk

Nieva is quite the little actress and does exactly what I need her to do. Posing the merfolk was a little harder as they only have armature in their tails so getting their arms to do stuff required needle and thread, or pins - ouchies!

To create my scenery my table top was covered with brown paper and over top of that I piled rocks, shells, driftwood etc, and sprinkled a thin layer of real sand. Some of the “plants” are felted things I created, and there is an abundance of my crochet “coral”. I need to give a shout out to the friend who provided most of the big shells in my diorama - thanks Priscilla! :) The magical everlasting lights I made out of beading supplies. My husband came home the other day and asked what I had been doing. To which I replied “making crabs”. He didn’t bat an eyelid - knowing full well that I’m always doing crazy stuff! Lol! The crabs were made out of Sculpey clay for a scene where Nieva teaches Kai the merman how to make fire and cook crabs! You can spot the crabs in the Ocean photo.

 In one corner I put a little waterfall which my husband got me for Christmas several years ago - I thought Nieva deserved some nice fresh water to drink after having to constantly melt snow on her travels! ;)

In my story Nieva gains several things from her time with the Merfolk. Apart from a couple of the magical lamps, she learns a valuable lesson about cultural differences and communication. She also finds she has a new connection to her animal companions. 

Nieva decided not to stay with the Merfolk (beautiful though the cavern is!) so she is off on her travels again. This time she gets to meet the dragon and I have to figure out how to make a meadow. The adventure continues…

Every Good Dragon needs a rider....

This is my dragon girl. I am thrilled to bits with how she turned out. She is 8 1/2 inches high and you may be able to tell that I had fun making her colorful. I used caramel colored wool for her skin and looked at many choices before picking blue for her hair. I’ve called her Affie (short for Sapphire). It’s a weird name, but I tried others and she didn’t like them, so Affie she is!

I bought a small piece of red leather at Ben Franklins the other week and had an idea that it would make lovely clothes for my dragon girl. I had intended to make the whole jacket out of leather, but didn’t have enough for the sleeves so I had to get creative with those and use some scraps of stretchy fabric. I think she looks like she shops in circa 1960’s Carnaby Street London! You will never guess what I made her white shorts and backpack out of?…..a discarded golf glove! My husband was throwing one away and I immediately thought “I’m sure that will come in handy for something!” Lol!

Affie and my new dragon have been getting acquainted and I can’t wait until Nieva meets them, but that’s a bit further along in the story.

In the meantime I have now finished my painting commission, cleared my studio and started building my mermaid cavern. It’s proving a big challenge particularly in the area of backdrops as I need rather an expanse of cave walls. Below is a sneak peak at Nieva arriving in the cavern. She looks amazed - and so she should. ;) Watch this space for more pics.

Entering the mermaid cavern

I get distracted - mostly by a Dragon

It seems that life is starting to get back to normal and things are getting busy again. Summer is here and there are a lot more distractions in the way of gardening, boating, and getting together with friends, both home and away. I haven’t built my mermaid cavern yet, as I have a painting commission to do and need space in my studio to finish that up. (The mermaid cavern will be coming soon though, I promise! ) However, in the meantime, I am still working hard on my story and in service of that I decided I needed a bigger, more posable, dragon and a dragon rider. 

The new blue dragon and my little red dragon, Firenza

My original red dragon (Firenza) is a little small and not as posable as I wanted for my story. She also has rather fragile wings. In building a new dragon I made a big strong male who is very flexible and will be much easier to pose. That doesn’t mean that Firenza won’t be in the story….as you can see they seem to be getting along (that may have to be a whole other story though!)

So here he is in all his glory. He is my fourth needle felted dragon and I have learned a lot in making each one. This is the first time I have attempted to make a mouth that can open and close. For this guy I decided to have a go a making his wings out of felt and for that I had to learn how to wet felt. (Thank heaven for Youtube!) 

Top - my first attempt at wet felting . The yellow gold is a “silk hankie” which is an actual silk cocoon pulled out into a fine square of silk fibers. I thought it would be attractive, but from comments I got (see below) I think it is a C- in the aesthetics department!

Bottom - Second attempt - a thinner, more delicate fabric, but not quite large enough for wings

Here’s what the fibers looked like on my second attempt before they got felted.

So what is wet felting vs needle felting you ask? Wet felting as the name suggests involves wetting flat layers of wool fiber and gently agitating them in order for the fibers to bind together to make a flat fabric.  Needle felting involves using very sharp barbed needles to push the wool fibers together and bind them either in a flat 2D form, or in sculpted 3D shapes such as I make with my creatures. Both processes are time consuming and tedious but the results can be amazing.  My first foray into wet felting produced a pretty good piece of felt that unfortunately was way too thick for my dragon wings. My son described this as looking like something a Yak threw up on! ;) I really didn’t think it was that bad! Lol!

Undaunted I ordered some fine Merino wool to felt with and using just a couple of thin fiber layers created the kind of fabric I wanted on my second attempt. You have to plan your pattern/colors and also figure in some fabric shrinkage ahead of time, so on my third attempt I succeeded in getting the right size, shape, and color - et voilá…Dragon Wings!

Quite a good wingspan don’t you think?!

I have also worked on a new “fairy”/ dragon rider girl who is a lot smaller than my original fairy Blaze. Much as I love Blaze, she is not posable so my new gal has an armature and will be fully posable when finished. This new character is part of my story and will accompany Nieva on her journey. Here are a couple of head shots. I am making clothes, so more on this girl next time… Now I must return to my commission.

My new “fairy”/dragon rider. Haven’t fixed on a name yet - suggestions on a postcard please…. ;)

A snowstorm.... and a cave

Nieva’s journey continues - as does mine. I am using a variety of skills as this project goes along. For this illustration I imported the original photo into my ancient version of Photoshop and applied some filters to make it look stormy. I haven’t done a lot in Photoshop, but the effect was kind of what I was after.

I’ve been using the “Pro” mode on my phone to take the photos and it works really well to adjust lighting, colors and exposure. The really tricky part is getting the focus right. I have lost count of the number of photos I’ve discarded because the important things are not in focus.

Setting up the shelter cave

The next part of Nieva’s journey has the travelers sheltering from the storm in a cave. This entailed bringing a lot more stones in from the garden to create a big cave. (Much eye rolling from my husband of course! Lol!) I also oil pasteled a bit more rock background. I used some fabric for the ground of the cave and added some moss to the rocks near the cave entrance. Lighting the cave was tricky, but I had already tried using a flashlight and orange film to create a yellow glow when I first made my little campfire, so this worked for the illustration here and created some cool shadows on the cave walls. I photographed several scenes in this cave, including some for later in the story, so I got pretty good use out of my rocks and backdrop.

One of the finished scenes

Naughty Rime has been chewing his pack. Nieva will have to do some repairs.

At the back of this shelter cave is a tunnel. This is the gateway to the world of the Merfolk. Yes, there are mermaids in my story - and a fairy and a dragon! But shhhh, don’t tell anyone, it’s a surprise. ;) So, now on to building a fabulous mermaid cavern…..

Nieva's Journey Begins...

Well, what a huge learning experience my story is turning into! Having built my cabin/cave for Nieva and her grandmother, I spent happy hours taking photos to illustrate my story. It’s quite a challenge to make a scene interesting and I am realizing I need to work on introducing drama in my scenes. I’m having fun learning how to pose my figures and find the best way to photograph them.

Rime the fox loves to beg and steal food!

Winter backdrop, oil pastel, 22 inches x 50 inches

Nieva begins her journey at the end of winter so I needed a snowy landscape as a backdrop. I created this using oil pastels.

What I really like about this whole project is that I can use so many different skills.

The companions begin their journey - Rime, the fox, is very excited!

"Blue Petering" a home for my Princess

I’m sure you’ve all been thinking Phew! thank heaven Sylvia has retired from blogging and quit bugging me Sorry, no, I have just been super busy building a home in which my princess and other characters can act out the beginning of my story. :)

“Blue Peter” was a favorite TV program from my childhood in England and one of the best segments was when the presenters showed you how to use cardboard boxes etc to make dolls house furniture. I spent my youth making shoebox wardrobes, match box chests of drawers, and cotton reel chairs for my toys. I am now well into my second childhood - so here we go again…!

I initially wanted to make a cave home for my princess and so to the annoyance of my husband I brought some big rocks in from the garden (to go with my huge twig collection!)  Then I decided to use up my twigs and create a log cabin at one end too. A unique hybrid type of home was formed - I now have a cabin/cave in my studio, and the garden is stripped bare!

Who looks at this and says “Hey, perfect for a fireplace…!” ?

After my success with my little camp fire one thing I was excited to make was a fireplace. I began with a piece of packaging that came with my new studio light. I cut out a fireplace opening and hot glued a bunch of stones from the garden on to it. 

A cosy fire.

I created the actual fire by gluing little pieces of twig to a battery operated tealight (2 for $1 at the dollar store) and adding some wool for flames. The light flickers and ended up looking really effective in photographs and I am thrilled to bits with it! I also hot glued some flat stones together to make a hearth in front of the fireplace, and (in a fit of madness) used some excess hot glue to make “candles” which sit on the rocks of the fireplace. My inner child is euphoric!

First empty the box of wine - hic! - then build the log cabin!

To make the log cabin part of Nieva’s home I cut one side off a large box, made a window and door and proceeded to glue my twigs to the inside walls. This took a lot of hot glue and time, as the twigs I have are mostly curved and had to be cut into smaller straightish pieces. My apologies to all those familiar with log cabins because this is not structurally correct, But, hey, this is fantasy…! My window has some nice shutters, which open, and the door eventually used up some of my stash of bark pieces and odd shaped bits of wood. 

Oil pastel rock background

Once the cabin was finished it became clear that my cave end was a little short on rocks and as I had no room on my table for more stones I decided to create a rock backdrop. 

I made this with oil pastels and just placed it behind the real rocks. It looks pretty effective.

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Here’s the overall scene in my studio

In setting up scenes from my story I also needed to indicate the outdoors, so I used one of my oil pastel paintings as a backdrop for the view from the cabin door. The painting featured a poor excuse for bison on it, so I had no qualms about turning them into poor excuses for reindeer. (brownie points for anyone who can find them!)

I played around with my existing fairy furniture (see previous old blogs for that) to organize the living space and voila! a home is made. As you can see, I didn’t make a roof, but use some tissue paper to create different atmospheric effects (warm or cool) inside the “house”.

The completed log cabin interior

Who wouldn’t want to visit this cozy home?!

My story writing continues apace, and I am busy photographing scenes which will introduce my story and also also provide backstory info later on. I am learning a lot about writing, character development, photography, and illustration. And I am only in the beginning scene - there are many more to come. A big challenge! 

Light and Fire - the innovative and the rudimentary

By way of procrastination I was scouring Pinterest and came across some cute little fairy lamps made from beads. Well, I have lots of beads so off to my stash I go….The glorious thing about these is they need no electricity or batteries - it’s magical! I wish I could get some on a human scale. The mermaids and fairies are delighted. Having magical lighting properties these valuable “lucidite” gems will no doubt play a part in my story… (Lucidite is my invention - so far as I know - and only available in my fairy wonderland!)

Now to the rudimentary side of things. My Princess is going on a journey and will need to have a camp fire on which to cook her food and make tea etc. So Sunday I busted out my glue gun and found a lot of twigs and small stones to create a cute little camp fire for her. It’s 7 inches high. I used wool to make some pretty successful flames and used various acorn cups as cooking pots and dishes. To light it for the photograph I put some orange film in front of a lamp to create that warm glow for the fire. I was thrilled with how it looks - I think Princess Nieva will like it. It will be used in a scene for my story.

Royal Fanfare...Heralds sing and so on...

Here she is….!  Princess Nieva, the heroine of my story. What fun I had making her. She is about 11 inches tall. First off I decided to make her darker skinned than my other figures, I guess I got bored with using “Pale Peachy” for my characters! I used some Latte color wool from Living Felt and I was pleased with the result. Also my brief research about people living in snowy lands told me that not all are light skinned and blue eyed, so that was further reinforcement of my idea. I was not going for a particular ethnicity as she is a fantasy character from an invented land, however I did search for inspiration by looking at many different cultures living in frozen lands.

In the process of making my princess I discovered that she likes yoga! A good demonstration of just how posable she is. (I think she looks good even before she got her hair - but she will never forgive me for posting this pic on the internet!)

Lovely wavy locks in the making…

My other characters have quite funky looking hair in crazy colors so I decided to go a little more conventional for the Princess. When I made the spaniel dogs before Christmas I learned how to make wavy fur. So, using the soft black wool I got for the black spaniel, I made some wavy locks by twisting lengths around a skewer, wetting it and letting it dry.

Kinda piratey looking underwear!

Of course once my princess was finished she needed clothes of some sort. (I rush off to Pinterest and look at costumes, Inuit clothing etc etc…! ) In thinking about underwear I was torn between just felting stuff permanently to her body vs making something removable. I went for removable because I’d like my princess to have a wardrobe of different clothes - because hello, she’s a Princess! I thought about the climate in my story which is snowy and freezing at the outset. What underwear would be practical for my princess? I have been watching way too much historical fashion stuff on Youtube so what I ended up making was a pair of drawers. These are very (very!) loosely based on early 19th century women’s underwear which initially consisted of two separate legs tied at the waist - hence “a pair”of drawers. I figured that way she wouldn’t have to take them off to go to the bathroom. Several of my friends have remarked that I am the only person they know who would worry about how their doll was going to pee in the snow! It’s the little details that are vital, my friends, (or I’m just crazy!) what can I say?! ;)

Next up was outer clothing of some sort. Again, thinking of climate I wanted something similar to the warm hooded coat I made for Grandmother Zuri. I acquired a variety of colors of felt and fabric and settled on the eggplant/purple felt. I made her coat shaped on the bottom and added a generous fur trim all round. The fur is knitting yarn - I just had to have it, but it has a tendency to shed and unravel so I had to glue the ends. I went back to Grandmother Zuri’s coat and added some fur to hers too. That lovely ribbon I bought on Etsy for the reindeer harness came in handy again for the front of the coat. My hand sewing skills have improved somewhat, and it does help working with stuff that doesn’t fray!

OK, now on to footwear. Princess Nieva would need boots for the snow, but I wanted them to be removable as she will have different clothing later in my story and boots may not go with it. I designed a pattern (another skill I am learning!) for boots and tried it out in cheap felt, before moving on to my pricey, teeny, piece of Michaels faux leopard skin leather ;).

Once I had the pattern worked out, I moved on to making the real thing. I sewed tiny loops for the laces to go through so they can be undone. The laces here are thin strands of hemp and are way too stiff really, so I will have to find a replacement. However, the boots worked out surprisingly well and, in fact made it even easier for my princess to stand unaided as I left the soles unfinished.

In this pic you can see that the boots are unfinished on the bottom. My daughter had the genius idea of adding the little magnets to Nieva’s feet so that I can use them to help pose her later for my story illustrations. More on that at a later date…

Using more of the reindeer harness leather I made Nieva a belt, attached the little knife in a sheath, and …ta da.. she is ready for adventures! Oh, but wait, she needs yet more clothes, because -  “princess”. Lol!  But that’s for next time…..

Time for a Sleigh-cation!

Have reindeer - need sleigh, so here goes.… I stole some bits of balsa wood from my husband’s stash in the garage to create the basic outer shape and a seat for my princess. It started out a little crude, but I think I eventually managed to wrangle it into a fairly cute and sturdy sleigh!

Here’s the rough start - I’m not much of a woodworker as you can see!

A princess requires comfort on her journey so I made some lovely wool upholstery for the seat.

I was going to use some bark or other natural materials to decorate the sleigh, but it didn’t work so I just painted it white. However, even several coats of paint could not hide the ugly surface of the balsa wood so I tried some folksy decoration based on some ribbon I have. That did the trick and made it look fun and pretty.

Here’s how I made the sleigh skis. I used tongue depressors which I soaked in hot water until they were bendable. Then I clipped them around a mug and let them dry. Voila! Sleigh Skis!

Plenty of room in the back of the sleigh for all the stuff a princess would take on an adventure. The netting to hold everything securely on the back of the sleigh is an old mandarin mesh bag. (finally a use for some trash that has been in my painting/collage stash for years…!)

Knowing that my princess would need to take some essentials on her journey, I began creating/finding some useful items for her. (For scale the walking stick at the bottom of the picture is 10” long)

The little storage box I already had from a wooden stagecoach kit, I painted it to match the sleigh. I had some huge acorn caps of different shapes and these make ideal little storage/serving items. I found a perfectly shaped piece of seashell to make a handy knife and just added a sculpey clay handle. The fish I made out of sculpey clay and painted. I made a fishing spear is also made from sculpey. The walking stick is just a painted twig embellished with beads and a tiny bell. You can probably tell that I am having so much fun with all these teeny tiny objects, and still thinking of other things to make….!

Finally, I had to create a harness for my reindeer so that she can pull the sleigh. For this I had several bits of ribbon, and a long length of super skinny leather cord. It was a challenge to form the harness and I used both sewing and gluing to piece it together. The tiny metal rings came from my beading stash, as did the bell, and the metal clasps holding the cross straps on. Sewing those minuscule 1/4” rings onto the leather was such a trial, but I was so pleased with the result it was worth the headache.

I bought some neodymium magnets to see if they will make good closures for tiny clothes etc. Neodymium magnets are the strongest permanent magnets you can get. As you can see above they come in really tiny sizes, this column of 18 individual disc magnets is just over half an inch. Can they be glued onto cloth, that is the important question? 

The answer is Yes! The magnets glue pretty well to cloth. They provide a good way to hold two strips of fabric together - here making my reindeer harness completely removable. I did buy some self adhesive magnets, but found they are only useful on paper as the adhesive is not very sticky.

Well, things are coming on apace for my story. I am busy making my princess, and in the meantime Grandmother Zuri is having fun driving the sleigh. Uh oh, not sure if she has a license for that - Serac the reindeer looks a little peturbed!

Lessons from a Grandmother

One of the characters I need for my story is a grandmother, so here was a great opportunity to create an old lady in wool. I looked at a few online videos and got some inspiration - and here she is! I had fun trying to create a lined and saggy face. She turned out prettier and less witchlike than I anticipated and has way more hair than most of us - well me anyway!!

My tale begins in a cold land and so my character names are all to do with snow and ice. The grandmother’s name is Zuri, which in most languages means white, beautiful, or light. (I’m sure Zuri was beautiful in her youth, now she has a lot of inner beauty)

Zuri does some housekeeping

I had some fun making some clothes for Zuri - sewing and decorating a warm coat, and then felting and sewing a dress and apron so that she is decent under her coat. I toyed with the idea of just giving her underwear, but she wanted more, and who am I to argue… And really you don’t want to be living in cold climes with just your underwear under your coat! I probably should have given her long sleeves…

The very beginning…

Here is Grandmother Zuri in the making. She is 10 inches high and fully posable. I first make the wire armature, then add white core wool to get the overall body shapes. Then I add skin color wool, sculpt the face, and add hair. I totally want that head of hair! I can do without the wrinkles and sourpuss look tho’! As you can see she stands on her own - or at least did until I added clothes. That was when I realized she would need a walking stick as an extra prop!

A handy little twig (from my huge stash of twigs!) makes a great walking stick. My husband swears there is more of the garden in my studio than there is outside! That’s surely an exaggeration…. I hope!

I used some beads and wire to pin up her hair, she looked a little wild otherwise.

Spoiler alert……..!! 

Sadly, my story has the grandmother’s passing as a catalyst for the beginning of a journey, but now, having created her, I realize that the life force is strong with her and she has no intention of passing away any time soon! So, she will be acting a small part in my story, and then subsequently having other adventures of her own. So the lesson imparted is that our creations (just like our children) determine their own path in life, no matter what your intentions for them may have been!

What Happens When the Story Muse Strikes

Although it’s been a few weeks since my last blog posting, I have not been idle! As you can see I made a reindeer over the Christmas season. I was following a great tutorial by fiber artist Sara Renzulli.

Once you have a reindeer, you have to have a sleigh, and then you need a princess to ride in it and of course there has to be a story… well that’s how my mind works anyway!

Did you know that reindeer’s eyes look blue in the wintertime? They have a way of altering the structure of their retinas by increasing pressure in the eye. That way their eyes see better in the long dark months of winter. Clever eh?!

How I got from just felting crazy critturs to illustrating a story went like this. While taking photos of my reindeer I thought it would look more appealing if I added a backdrop, so I utilized one of my many paintings. This one is a watercolor impression I painted several years ago of Dartmoor in England. Of course England is not the native home of reindeer, but that aside, as I looked at the resulting image an idea started to coalesce in my brain and before I knew it I was typing furiously on my computer and a whole string of characters and scenarios took shape. An illustrated story is in the making!

So, for the time being I have embarked on creating my various characters in wire, wool and wood, and thinking of how the story will unfold visually. Quite a challenge - and you, dear reader, will be the testing ground of my imagination is I create this little world. Stand by for a flight of fantasy!

What a difference a year makes!

As an aside I thought I would show this photo to illustrate my progress in felting. It’s almost a year since I first took up needle felting and I have learned such a lot.  This medium is so much fun, and so challenging - it’s not surprising my imagination is all fired up! The pic above shows on the left the very first fairy I attempted to make, and on the right the beginnings of one of my story characters. This one will be Zuri, the grandmother. Panic not - she will have some clothes in due course!